For release
Further information: contact Joseph Giomboni
Public Relations office, (570) 208-5957
May 7, 2018 – Dr. Joel Shuman, professor of theology at King’s College, will spend the 2018-19 academic year as a Visiting Scholar in the Theology, Medicine, and Culture (TMC) Initiative at Duke University Divinity School, where he earned his Master of Theological Studies degree.
While at Duke, Shuman will teach TMC fellows and Divinity students in the initiative's foundational course, "The Healing Arts: Illness, Suffering, and the Witness of the Church."
He will also continue work on a funded multidisciplinary research project addressing the opioid epidemic, focusing in particular on southern Appalachia. That project begins in mid-May at a conference in Johnson City, Tenn., where Dr. Shuman will be one of the plenary speakers.
A faculty member at King’s since 2001, Shuman’s research focuses on the intersection of theology and medicine and other applied biological sciences. He is author of numerous scholarly articles and four books: “The Body of Compassion: Ethics, Medicine and the Church” (1999), “Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine and the Distortion of Christianity” with Keith Meador (2003), “Reclaiming the Body: Christians and the Faithful Use of Modern Medicine” with Dr. Brian Volck (2006), and “To Live is to Worship: Bioethics and the Body of Christ” (2007). He co-edited and contributed to the volume of essays, “Wendell Berry and Religion: Heaven's Earthly Home” in 2009.
A native of West Virginia, Shuman earned his bachelor’s degree in physical therapy from the Medical College of Virginia. After practicing physical therapy for several years in Wisconsin, West Virginia and Virginia, he returned to school to develop his interests in Christian theology and moral and political philosophy. Shuman earned his doctorate in Religion, specializing in Theological Ethics, from the Graduate School of Duke University.
Dr. Joel Shuman